AIBU To think that Labour is more against aspirations than the Conservatives?

[DistinguishedSocialCommenator]

Both of the above are ready to shaft the hard-working people who have not just worked hard, but spent/invested wisely rather than throw it way on lifestyles.

IMO, Labour is seriously anti those with some investments, EG, BTL, and people who own another property. People who have savings etc as these people decided not to blow away their money but be wise with it

Both, Labour and Tories don't give a flying F about those that own even a single property when it comes to care home charges. The new alliance is a con. So, if you don't own you home as about 45% of England does not, you are unlikely to be shafted unless you have large amount of savings for your rainy day/retirement etc

The extra tax on cars , ir road tax pay extra in their hundreds/thousands on cars costing more than 40k new RRP was set several years ago and not been adjusted for inflation - thanks to Tories

LL's getting hammered by new rules always favouring the T's - There are many good LL's as well as T's, so why penalise asperations?

We boguth a couple of properties to fund our retirement, erly retirement and went without hols/etc for many years and at times both of us worked 50 hours a week, 6/7 days a week. We also did not want to live of the state and pass money etc to our children/grandchildren to help them to a less stressful start thn us.

Though both Lab/Con are as bad as the other, if you've saved a few qquid, earn a decent amount of money and have more than one property, AIBU to think the Labour lot will shat us hard, seriously hard and waste money on foolish projects in order to secure votes for the next election if they win this election?

You do realise that public borrowing is at an all time high, and the Tories have been in charge for 14 years ?

I suspect the £4bn misspent in Covid, £7bn Covid Fraud, £35bn lost in Liz Truss’s budget, £140bn shrinkage in the economy since Brexit, plus record inflation is much more problematic.

What have the Tories done over the last 14 years to sort out low wages, so people don’t need tax credits ? The figures would suggest nothing.

If there's any justice in life, at the next general election the fucking Tories will be booted into the political wilderness for at least the next 20 years.

And fucking good riddance. Shithouses.

@Ringpeace or maybe forever? They deserve to be utterly annihilated.

There is no one to vote for. Taxes will rise even higher under Labour and nothing will be any better.

I’d rather leave the UK, tbh.

Rwanda. Although obviously that has just entailed wasting millions of pounds so far.

This is the same OP that thinks doctors should have their right to strike withdrawn.

You might struggle to leave the country. The Tory Government's Brexit removed your right to live, work or study freely in Europe and you'll need a lot of dosh and a highly paid, secure job to move anywhere else. So good luck with that.

High earners can move easily. Can’t see any real reason why they wouldn’t now

Bye then.

Whoever gets in, normal people are screwed. The Tories support the ultra-rich and grudgingly provide support for people on benefits, whilst squeezing and screwing those on low to middle incomes, 20-40K range. Labour support those on benefits and grudgingly help the ultra-rich, whilst squeezing and screwing those on low to middle incomes.

The only real difference is Labour lie and pretend they're not fucking you over whilst they do it, whereas the Tories don't mask their contempt as they fuck you over.

Basically the choice is do you prefer people to be honest as they ruin your life, or do you prefer to live in a fantasy land and pretend to yourself that they're not ruining it even though every atom of your body knows they are?

I was excited about getting rid of the Tories. However, Labour announcing they plan to put VAT on private schools which will basically just be passed on to the parents, is making me think twice. I now don’t trust them as it sounds like a thin end of the wedge which will start being applied to other things.

No tax rises should be introduced for the foreseeable at all. Structural reform of services should be the focus. Not just taking more and more of peoples money, throwing good after bad.

What if they spend that money on improving standards for all children, improving education for all? Or is it only your children who deserve to benefit from the opportunities provided by a high quality education?

Conservative HQ getting desperate peddling this crap through sock-puppets on MN the day after two thumping by-election losses to Labour even after Kier's Anti-Semitism scandal.

Private education is a discretionary purchase of a luxury item, of course it should have VAT on it. If I am going to have to pay 20% tax on toothpaste and toilet roll that I buy with my already taxed income you should be paying it on buying privilege for your kids.

This "they're all as bad as each other" narrative is beyond boring, and actually a pretty lazy conclusion to make. I can only assume that 14 years of collective electorate amnesia, coupled with Stockholm Syndrome, is to blame.

It's time to start buying a different newspaper OP, your current one isn't doing you any favours.

How are the tories honest ? They live in fantasy land.

Have you got a source for the statement in your first two sentences, @Alcyoneus ?

It seems to be rather at odds with the fact that the highest ever number of people in the UK were on benefits in 20/21, which was 10 years after Labour were last in charge.

https://news.sky.com/story/record-number-of-britons-receiving-benefits-that-amount-to-more-than-they-pay-in-tax-study-finds-12793349#:~:text=Analysis%20by%20Civitas%20of%20Office,as%20NHS%20and%20education%20services.

Of course, they may have got that down a bit post-Covid, but a cursory google hasn't brought up any sources with a total figure and the complexity of weeding out any double counting while so many are on a mixture of various legacy benefits and UC is too much for my brain on a non-working day.

If the Tories were serious about cutting the "benefit bill", they'd introduce rent controls. The housing costs element is the largest single item in virtually every UC breakdown I look at (I'm a welfare rights adviser) and lots of families with decent incomes are entitled to UC simply because of high rental costs.

I also suspect that the there is a significant amount of under-claiming. Our team is tiny (less than 4 FTE posts) and we uncover far more underpayments than overpayments. In the last full year that we reported on, we got an extra £680k for clients who'd been underclaiming/underpaid. If that's typical, it's no wonder the coalition stopped public funding for welfare rights work.

I'm sorry but this is laughable. Labour are 20 points ahead. As a point of attack, saying they are anti aspiration is a bit like puffing a pea shooter into a hurricane.

This disaster government needs a huge, game changing narrative. Anti aspiration when they have presided over a massive collapse in living standards isn't just tone deaf, it's the reason they are going to win handsomely.

OP I'd say if you are a standard Conservative voter then your view is quite normal, but you have got to raise your eyes to how others live. They don't agree.

It won’t improve standards at all. Most of the issues are behavioural related. Making Fiona go the same school as Kai, isn’t going to stop Kai’s low level nuisance making or stop him smoking vapes in the school toilets. Fiona will just get additional tuition and activities outside of school to make up for things she’s missing in her new school. And her parents will use the saved money to buy her a house, unless people campaign to stop people giving their kids a deposit also.

It’s structural reform of services that’s required. Making some people happy that some others can no longer afford to go to private school won’t make a tiny bit of difference. It’s lazy thinking. We need genuine innovation in the sector.

As Labour made this one of their flagship announcements, I’m concerned what’s next regarding increasing financial burden through higher taxation. It’s always easy to shake down the middle class. They’ve signalled this is their plan. It won’t stop at schools.

You can shout that I’m ‘wrong’ all you like, but this is my take on the situation.

Nice try Alcyoneus. Who benefits most from subsidised wages? Yes, employers, that's right. And who benefits most from housing benefits? Landlords. Well done. Keep thinking.

Meant to quote someone else’s post in response to mine, not my own!

It hasn’t been enacted and never will be. And the proponents know it. That’s the whole point. Name another one that is actual policy that has been enacted.

The only question I have is how desperate the Conservatives are; would they run this mess to January next year?

It’s structural reform of services that’s required. Making some people happy that some others can no longer afford to go to private school won’t make a tiny bit of difference. It’s lazy thinking.

Yes, structural reform like removing a class/ wealth-based, two tier education system with a system that works equally well for little Kai as for Fiona. Smaller class sizes, proper buildings (not rotting concrete and mobile classrooms), excellent standards of teaching and pastoral care, the latest technology, books and equipment.

And how many parents who can afford to send their children to private school will suddenly stop sending them just because it got a bit more expensive? That 20% VAT might actually be spent on reducing the outcomes gap between state and privately educated children. It's about more than little Kai (nice sterotype there by the way - the child who under achieves is always a vaping/ smoking kid with behavioural problems, right?) and Fiona. It's about sending a clear message that every child matters and every parent has a right to demand high standards for their child.